Our first week in New York I discovered once again that I was not pregnant. I had almost convinced myself that I was. I think sometimes when we want something so badly, our mind, and sometimes even our bodies, play tricks on us and we are convinced. I think it was actually at that point that I first said in my mind, "I can't get pregnant." I wasn't being pessimistic necessarily, I think I had just entered a new phase of the grieving process that is associated with infertility. By that time it had been around 2 years of unsuccessful trying, and I was starting to feel very defeated.
This was the first time I actually told someone about my struggle. I thought it would be healing and helpful, but I discovered over the next year that I was wrong. At first it didn't feel that way. In the beginning of that October Mitch and I attended an informational meeting about adoption with a Christian agency in the area. Of course, I told my confidant about the upcoming meeting, and they seemed excited for me. Everything looked good, but then everything backfired. The person I told spent the next year bullying me, it felt like, at every opportunity. That was the beginning of a few very dark years for me. I became very depressed and struggled even to eat. Between that Fall and Spring, I lost a lot of weight and felt sick all the time. I felt very alone and utterly defeated.
At the informational meeting, we were told that the chances of an expectant mother selecting us to adopt her child were slim. Because of the fact that, not only did we look very young, but we were very young, the chances are small. I felt let down and discouraged. I thought a lot about foster care, but from all I had heard, it is difficult to adopt through foster care in our county. I still clung to a hope that maybe I would get pregnant, although, my heart was starting to soften more and more to adoption. I was tied between two dreams: the dream to become pregnant, and the dream to adopt. I felt like I was stuck in a whirlwind of waiting in the dark... Waiting for whichever dream came first, or the day when one, or both, died.